


empty nest

by judypoovey



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: A really dumb arrested development joke, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 15:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14793054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judypoovey/pseuds/judypoovey
Summary: When Russell goes off to school, his parents really end up missing him.





	empty nest

**Author's Note:**

> This is short, self-indulgent and stupid. But when Wade brought Ness back I was like "hey. OT4." because I don't want people to forget about her, and like... now they all have their big stupid family. 
> 
> If you haven't seen Julian Dennison recently, his hair is super long and he looks freaking adorable, so that's how I'm mentally picturing Russell when they talk about him having long hair. And I definitely cranked this out in like an hour and barely proofed it so...forgive any and all typos.

Russell had been nervous about his first year of high school being at Xavier’s school. He’d been allowed to stay with Wade and Vanessa over the summer but he’d be boarding at the school now that the school year had rolled around.

Ness had done a good job of pep talks and putting him at ease, really she had.

So why was she so sad when the mansion came into view?

The months since Wade had played with the timeline to bring her back, and Peter, but still make everything else happen so they could come into possession of one Russell “Firefist” Collins had been odd and hectic and stressful. He’d explained it in typical Wade fashion and, well, Vanessa was used to it at this point.

One thing that had been a highlight of it was Russell. He was a good kid, and Wade adored him. She had spent a lot of time with him, trying to help him work through the horrors in his past, preparing him for a real school that wouldn’t torture and abuse him, and making sure Wade didn’t let him stay up all night eating sweets.

Cable, who now lived with Al, was also a frequent fixture. Vanessa thought maybe he enjoyed the chance to be a parent again, because Wade’s fucking with the time mechanism had thoroughly re-broken it, and it could now only go backwards, eliminating any chance of him changing his mind and leaving their weird little foursome. 

And then there was Colossus. She had always known Wade had a thing for him, but it had gotten a little out of hand.

So all four of them had become a team, a unit, a parental force to be reckoned with.

 _Not_ a P-Force, Wade W. Wilson.

“I can’t believe Wade and Nate didn’t come to see me off,” Russell grumped.

She smiled vaguely, trying to hide her ‘first day of school’ blues. “I know, it was bad timing with the job, but Colossus said you can visit home on the weekends.”

He still smiled to himself when she called it ‘home’. She got a little thrill out of it too. They had a home.

Sure, when she and Wade had discussed a family, she’d been expecting a little baby Wade-Vanessa hybrid, not a teenager with anger issues, but…it was so _them_. Russell would probably appreciate a little sibling, and she appreciated time to make sure she was the best mom she could be, anyway. She thought she was getting the hang of it. His hair was a little long, maybe, but he ate three meals a day and had read at least one book since he moved in. That was good, right?

They pulled up to the gates and a banner rolled down across the fence.

_FAMILY LOVE RUSSELL._

“What the hell?”

Wade and Cable were just inside, accompanied by Dopinder and Domino. Even Al had come out, and Colossus and Negasonic were crossing the yard with Yukio, to formally welcome him to the mansion for the school year.

“Happy first day!” she said. The surprise had been hard to plan; it involved Wade and Nathan going to the mansion for a few days, convincingly pretending they were out on a job, and Vanessa (not skilled at secret keeping when she was excited) keeping her trap shut.

“What the fuck? I get a banner?” he asked, getting out of the car, only to get snatched up into a hug by Wade.

“Like I’d miss my favorite little guy’s first day,” he said loudly. "Look at banner!"

“Wade, he’s not five,” Cable said.

“Then why do I feel so emotional?!” Wade wailed. "Baby bird is leaving the nest!"

Russell was simultaneously touched and humiliated by his horribly embarrassing family. Having never had a family to be embarrassed of, it was nice, but he was starting to smoldering slightly in shame. 

\--

“I’m bored.”

“I miss Russell.”

“What are we supposed to do with all this free time?”

“I guess we could have sex?”

“…Nah…it's like...really hot outside…”

Vanessa, Wade and Cable were suddenly very lost in life. The first two weekends, he had come home to spend time with them, but he’d made friends now, and he wanted to hang out with them, and not his lame parents.

His grades were solidly middle of the road (“Just like his dad,” Wade said, wiping away a tear.), he seemed to have made a solid few friends, and Colossus said that his Professor-mandated-anger-management was going well, too.

All in all, they had a lot to be proud of, but Vanessa was still fantasizing about him getting expelled and coming back home to stay with them, to make the house a little livelier. Al missed having someone to listen to her rambling stories, and Wade was just…worried.

“What if the other kids are making fun of him?” he asked, flopping back onto where Cable was lying on the bed. “Kids can be so mean.” He was definitely thinking about last time they’d visited and Negasonic had called him ‘Dorkpool’ and he’d cried for ten minutes.

“Yukio said she’d keep the other kids in line.”

That reassurance should have been good enough for Wade, but he continued to dramatically groan and smother Cable until Colossus came over. That meant the school day was done, and their weekly ritual of meeting to discuss how school was going for the child that they now all thought of as their adopted son.

“He is doing well in his music class,” Colossus reported. “But not so good in math.”

“I was never strong in math myself,” Wade agreed with a dramatic sigh. “Join the bed pile, big guy. Plenty of space.”

There was not actually plenty of space, and a month ago he would have shrugged off the invitation as one of Wade’s jokes, but eventually he realized (as they all did) that, no, he was being completely serious, so they made room in the bed and in the relationship for two metal guys and now they were all dogpiled together, missing their son.

“And he’s behaving? No chance of him getting expelled?”

“Wade, we talk about this. He needs the school. You are not qualified to teach him and can’t keep him locked up in the apartment.”

Vanessa was scooting over to allow for more space, everyone else bunching up around the hulking Russian who was now sagging the mattress. That was sort of how it had to go with size differences – Colossus found room and everyone sort of squeezed in at random other spots and hoped they didn’t fall off the bed.

She thought it kept things interesting, at least.

“I really do miss him,” she said.

Wade petted her hair and didn’t even have a joke.

“He needs a haircut,” Cable said.

“What?! No! The long hair is fantastic and he needs to be able to express himself!” Wade protested. It was true that Russell’s hair had grown a lot in the past couple of months, dangerously close to what Vanessa called ‘manbun zone’, but really she thought he looked grown-up and nice with the long hair.

Cable rolled his eye.

“I agree with Nathan, it is getting long,” Colossus said.

“He’s fourteen, he decides it for himself,” she ruled. The boys might bicker back and forth – Cable claiming experience, Colossus claiming knowledge, and Wade claiming that he was Russell’s favorite so he knew best – but she got to be law. Power of the mom.

“Let’s order a pizza and prank call that anti-mutant senator while he’s on CNN,” she concluded, elbowing Wade onto the floor so she could stand up and stretch.

“Oh, let’s call Domino and have her bring the Dominoes,” Wade suggested.

A pause.

“Just to avoid the delivery fee, you know,” he added.

“We’re not actually ordering Dominoes, right?” Cable asked. “In my timeline they put rats on their pizza.”

“Well, now we definitely are.”


End file.
